How am I doing?
I’m just back from a yoga class and became aware that my ‘how am I doing tape?’ is hardly running any more.
What a revelation!
…and until the tape had wound right down, I hadn’t realised that it was running so constantly.
So with yoga the tape went something like… ‘I should go, I can’t be bothered, I’m too tired, it’s cold, I’m not sure about that teacher…’.
Then once I got there… ‘Am I feeling this, stretch harder, gosh look what that person’s able to do’. Yanking my body around, pulling it into poses rather than simply being with the breath and feeling my way….
And most significantly for me spending the class thinking about what I had to do afterwards, what I should have done before I went, blah blah blah all taking me away from being present to the moment.
Striving, straining and my internal critic all having a field day, under the guise of me trying to be a better version of myself.
Me? Lost…
The moment? Lost…
Mark Twain’s quote “Comparison is the death of Joy” really highlights how when we compare ourselves we can lose the joy of being present in that moment as comparison instantly invites us to step into observing ourselves and asking ‘how are we doing?’ in the moment, rather than just being in it.
I don’t know about you, but when I compare, I usually come up short, this or that could be better, improved upon….and even if I don’t come up short I can still feel uncomfortable. All in all the thinking about ‘where I am’ doesn’t nourish me.
Yes we can have all of these thoughts and none of these thoughts or a different set of thoughts.
That’s a normal part of being human.
When we remember that we are the sky and all of our thoughts are weather, we can settle. When we think we are the weather it can feel like a pretty rough ride.
The extent to which we engage our thinking and inhabit these thoughts is often where we get ‘lost in thought’ and miss out on being in the moment.
Being in the moment isn’t necessarily always joyful, it can be very uncomfortable which is often why we expend a lot of energy trying to avoid or protect ourselves from this experience.
As Sydney Banks said:
“If only we could learn not to be afraid of our experience that alone would change the world.”
The other day I heard someone explaining the purpose of experiencing Shivasana, the rest time at the end of yoga. Often we can be tempted to skip this part of class, as we’ve done the work out, so now back into the day. Or we stay but then spend the time listing all the things we have to do once we leave.
She said yoga can be akin to the work of making a delcious freshly squeezed juice. Shivasana is when we drink the juice. If we skip this we‘ve done all the work and then left without the receiving of the nourishment. This morning I recognized that I was present and able to receive. Now I feel nourished.